butterflykisses

Posted 24 July 2009 - 11:10 PM

butterflykisses

Senior Member

Seniors

601 posts

Two things that may or may not be a problem...make sure not to use cold insulin and second, when you're filling the cartridge be careful to control how fast the insulin enters. It's especially challenging with a full bottle of insulin, the pressure from introducing air into the bottle forces insulin into the cartridge and with it pulls the air with it. Those tiny bubbles will turn into larger bubbles and end up in your tubing.

Lilly164

Posted 25 July 2009 - 06:16 AM

Lilly164

Member

Members

113 posts

Insulin is heavier than air. Keep the outlet tubing site down. The air will be at the top and the pump will push insulin out, not air. In other words, hang the insulin pump with the outlet down, not turned sideways. Air in the chamber is only a problem if it is pumped out and counted as insulin by the pump.

shawal65

Posted 02 August 2009 - 01:19 PM

shawal65

Junior Member

New Members

7 posts

If you search for "bubble trouble," you'll find a thread I started from a few months ago with WAY too much information. The bottom lines are:
1. Bubbles in the reservoir less than about 1/16" in diameter, or less than 1/4" long in the tubing, amount to less than 0.1 Unit of insulin and probably aren't significant.
2. Some people get bubbles; most people don't. For the unlucky ones, no matter how carefully you get the system to be bubble-free to start, significant bubbles can develop. And bubbles develop whether the insulin starts out cold or at room temperature.
Updates since that thread:
1. We offered to go to Medtronic and let them see what I do when I start an infusion set, since they're in the Los Angeles area. They said, "Sure," and sent a non-disclosure form to sign that basically said we couldn't tell anybody anything we heard from them or we could be sued for lots of money.
2. The recall of infusion sets hasn't made any difference in bubble formation, but it has lowered the number of infusion sets that go bad.
3. We're trying to get information from Medtronic about how the infusion sets are "vented," but haven't heard back from them. Does anybody know in detail how the venting works in the infusion sets?